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lolscourge
11-20-2012, 01:13 PM
Annabelle

Long, slender reeves stand tall around the boy, rooted deep in thick mud which he is tirelessly trudging through. Around him, the air is slow-moving, cold, and there hangs a low mist. Above him the night is glittered with stars; there's not a cloud in sight.

Looking up, the boy can see all the constellations, with red gleams and purple hazes. The moon stands out most, bold and bright.

Crickets and flies buzz an eternal tune whilst a not-far-off river trickles noisily. The reeves wave lazily and, as the boy brushes through them, he moves closer to the silhouette of a large oak tree. The tree, old and ridged, stands grandly, hanging on a bank just off the river. It' mid-autumn, and browned leaves can be seen dropping from great branches. A frayed rope, lassoed around the most prominent branch, is still from where a tyre swing once was.

It was here they had arranged to meet. The girl, who's beauty had forsaken the rumours, had asked him here.

He comes to the hill leading up to the bank and calls her name. There's no answer, so, sighing, he starts up the hill, digging his feet into the mud to stop himself slipping over and hugging his overcoat as the winds pick up. He drags himself up the mound, and as he approaches the top he looks up and calls out again, louder. This time a voice echoes back to him, gleeful at his arrival. He grins, cheerful, and pushes up the last of the hill, coming to the first root of the oak tree. Pulling himself upright, he edges around the trunk to where he sees her, sitting behind the arch.

He sarcastically thanks her for her help, but his smile gives him away. She crinkles her nose and laughs apologetically as he sits beside her. The ground is drier here, but still damp, so the boy grimaces as he sinks half an inch into the ground.

“It's wet,” the boy murmurs. The girls looks at him, eyes wide, and folds into herself as she smirks immaturely. The boy frowns at her. “That's so childish.”

She turns her head and nods with a perfect smile, but doesn't respond, instead casting her gaze back across the river and into the mists, eyes flickering. Her hair is short, pinned up like he had seen in the theatre posters scattered around his village back home. Her legs are huddled into her chest and her arms are collapsed around them. She has dressed warm, in a thick, woollen jumper and snug jeans; she's wearing walking boots. Her sensible outfit doesn't compare to the boy's, who had lazily slipped on a tee-shirt and grabbed his coat as he headed out barefoot. He's wearing shorts from earlier in the day, and the hairs on his legs are standing tall in attempt to keep him warm.

He shivers violently, to which the girl turns her head and questions his attire. “I don't know, I was in a rush” brings a mocking silence to her. The girl turns her head out to the river again, rolling her eyes as the boy shifts his arm and his legs into the hull of his coat, huddling for warmth.

“Why are we here again?” he asks, looking at her.
“Because,” she responds, “look at it.”

Following the girl's gaze, the boy lays eyes to the scenes in front of him.

The mist is slowly clearing, and so past the reeves and river far off hills can be seen emerging, edging the skies. Trees of various species can be seen standing in fields which are glowing with dew and which illuminate the speckled night sky; in the distance, a stone hut can be seen, with a smoking chimney and small, wooden, four-pane windows. Fences, hedges and pathways trace shapes into the earth; not scarring it, but refining it. It is beautiful.

The boy shifts awkwardly.


“So, er, Anna, whe-”
“Annabelle.” The girl snaps. The boy jumps, hurt. “Sorry. It's Annabelle, alright? I can't stand it when people call me by who I'm not.”
“Oh, God, er, sorry,” he says, reeling, “I didn't mean to upset you.” She laughs, and pushes his shoulder.
“You didn't.” She turns and smiles at him again, that glorious, perfect smile. It eases him. “Just remember. Annabelle.”

hillwalker
11-20-2012, 02:12 PM
This was enjoyable to read and you obviously have a flair for writing concisely.
Some of your descriptions are very evocative of a special place and moment, but for such a short piece perhaps you take too long to set the scene at the very start.

I'd also advise excising some of the adverbs that add nothing :

'tirelessly trudging' - 'stands grandly' - 'smirks immaturely' - 'shivers violently'

It's not a requirement that every verb needs a modifier :-) and if you choose the right verb anyway any adverb will be redundant.

I'm not sure what 'reeves' are supposed to be unless you mean 'reeds' - apologies if the term passed me by.

But overall a very promising first post on here. Good stuff.

H

sarah.nichole
11-20-2012, 02:51 PM
Very peaceful story in my opinion. I enjoyed it.

Just one little thing; you missed the "s" when you said "it's mid-autumn". That's all :)

AuntShecky
11-20-2012, 05:09 PM
According to the relatively low number of your posts, you are a new arrival to this site. As a fellow "LitNutter" (nothing more), I'd like to say that I hope you will enjoy yourself here and maybe learn a few things along the way.

As to your story, the plot is pleasant but a little "slight." In my opinion it took a while get going. You'll want to grab your reader's attention in the first paragraph, if not the first sentence.

Even though an important aspect of the story is the gorgeous setting -- like descriptions of places in the Anne of Avonlea books--- but I wonder if your descriptions go over the top. Strike a balance between expressing the beauty of the scene without weighing it down with needless words. Now that I think of it, since the beauty of the setting is so crucial, why not hold off on its description, until the end when the title character points it out.That way you could build up a modicum of suspense.

At this point, I'd say the area you should start working on is grammar, specifically in word choices, punctuation, and especially modifiers (participles.)


Reeves-- can be medieval government officials, certain kinds of rope loops, or birds, none of which you mean. "Reeds," right?


who's beauty You mean the possessive pronoun (no apostrophe) --whose
Incidentally, I don't know what "whose beauty had forsaken the rumours" means.

There are pronoun/antecedent errors as well as misplaced modifiers ("dangling participles")

One of my personal peeves are stories in which the only reference to a character is a pronoun. Although I know the title character's name is the focus of your story--but for some reason her name is spelled two ways, with and without a hyphen--why doesn't the boy have a name? "He" (Whatshisname) seems little more than a cardboard cutout instead of being made of real flesh and blood, more "human" (in addition to getting his date's name wrong.) "To err is human," wrote Pope, but human beings are more than that, or so one would hope.

Speaking of verisimilitude, how does someone "laugh apologetically?"


"He comes to the hill leading up to the bank and calls her name." Grammatically, this sentence makes it seem like the bank has a gender, (female), because it is the closest noun next to "her." We can figure out what you mean, but why not be precise with language? After he came to the hill leading up to the bank, he called her name.


". . .echoes back to him, gleeful at his arrival." The way this sentence is constructed, it looks as if the Whatshisname is "gleeful", instead of whom you mean.

As you can see, the flaws in this are easy to fix (unlike those in other stories we both have read.) I look forward to reading more of your material.

lolscourge
11-20-2012, 06:17 PM
Thanks everybody. I am new, and I would just like to point out, Anna-belle isn't one of my most recent works - it was something I posted just to get the ball rolling, to see what the c/c was like, where I stood etc. and hopefully you'll find my newer WIP that I plan on posting much better.

I'm going to admit, this was never supposed to be the most invigorating of storylines. It was simply a piece to practice my descriptive writings.

Pretty much everything in this thread I agree with, and I'd just like to clear one or two things up:

"Whose beauty had forsaken the rumours" - Anna-belle was originally intended to be a witch. Rumours had spread around the boys village, but her beauty was so striking he ignored them, i.e forsook them. It was just something I never expanded on.

"Laughing apologetically" was the idea that Anna-belle found the boys sarcasm funny, but still felt sorry for not helping him. It might not make great sense, but it seemed to work?

Oh, and reeves is nothing more than a silly mistake. It's reeds.

Do also take a gander at my poetry work, because that is a new piece. http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?72423-Pot-Ventriloquism